The greatest superhero cartoon, ever

I debated a while over what to talk about in a first post about superheroes for this blog. Unsurprisingly, I kept coming back to Batman.

He’s been my favorite superhero for decades, which makes me in that respect about as unique as hydrogen. Also, I just got done re-re-reading the Death of the Family crossover, which is just about the greatest thing DC Comics has done yet with the New 52. Also, this year is the 75th anniversary of the character’s debut. And finally, there was the recent news that the overlord of that part of the Batman mythos that made me a fan had returned to the fold.

That would be Bruce Timm, the co-creator and producer of Batman: The Animated Series, which debuted in 1992. It remains the definitive animated treatment of the Caped Crusader and almost certainly one of the top two offerings among the entire DC Animated Universe (the other probably being Justice League Unlimited, another production in which Timm was involved.)

Batman: The Animated Series went off like a bomb among my group of college-age co-conspirators. At that point, to the extent that I dug comics at all, I was a Marvel fan. I grew up mostly reading John Byrne’s Fantastic Four and Chris Claremont’s X-Men. I harbored a certain amount of respect for Batman, mostly because of his villains. But many of DC’s heroes struck me at the time as cheesy do-gooder kids’ stuff. See also Blue Beetle and Capt. Marvel.

Anyway, Batman: The Animated Series had a unique Gothic look, thanks to work of co-creator Eric Radomski, shades of gray and muted colors due to its animation technique of painting over black paper. It evoked noir films of the 30s and 40s, and its depiction of Gotham City presented a visual style no one had seen in a cartoon before. Only a few years after Tim Burton taught us that Batman was a human cartoon, here was a cartoon that made Batman into a heavyweight human being. In addition to its dark look it also had a dark tone, and enough thematic complexity for adults. It won four Emmy awards, and launched the DCAU continuity.

So when I read that Timm was bringing his long-eared Batman back to television, for the first time since Justice League Unlimited ended in 2004, I got really kind of excited. He created a short, Batman: Strange Days, that aired April 9 during Cartoon Network’s DC Nation block. It featured Bats taking on his original villain, Hugo Strange, in an adaptation of the comic’s first issue from 75 years ago.

That’s a nice touch, and it’s good to see Timm return. Let’s hope he continues, even if it’s just a series of one-shots. And as long as we’re fantasy booking, let’s also hope they wind up in a compilation for our home video libraries.

Matt is a writer, musician, and almost certainly the biggest nerd in the newsroom. If it can be watched, read, listened to or bashed on the head with a steel chair, it'll show up here sooner or later. On Twitter: @MajorMatt70